SHIBBOLETH: Thoughts on life and faith

Being devoted to… fellowship (Acts 2:42 Series)

To be a Christian is to be part of a community. The Bible teaches that Jesus died to make a people for himself, Jesus died to bring sinners into relationship with himself and one another. Whilst the coming to know Jesus may well be an individual thing, continuing in the faith is far from an individual thing. Being a Christian is a hard task, people think we are mad, bad or just out of touch and if we are to keep going, if we are to keeping following Jesus, then we need to help one another. Being devoted to fellowship therefore means being devoted to those in our local church, being devoted to our Christian brothers and sisters and not just on Sunday but all through the week.

We need to ask ourselves the question: do we spend time with others from our church community, not just our personal friends, but with all of our church. Most churches are small enough that we ought to be able to spend time with everyone from our church within a fairly short space of time. We can do this through organised activities like Bible Study, Prayer Meeting and Sunday services, these are a great way to encourage people to follow Jesus as we look at the Bible and pray together. But if we only do this, I don’t think that this counts as being DEVOTED to fellowship. Socialising with each other, spending time just doing the ordinary things of life, shopping, chatting, eating watching the game, whatever you do as part of your individual life can be done together with someone else and is often more fun that way.

This isn’t about creating a separate community, far from it, but rather about creating a strong community where Christian brothers and sisters can grow together, share their lives with one another, talk about the hard things, the private things and the things we’re shy about; a community were we don’t just talk politely but meaningfully so that we all go from strength to strength together. When we build such a community with the help of God, we find something which is very attractive to most of the world which is so often starved of such friendship and love. Then we can more effectively reach out to those around us, as we invite them to get to know us, and through that to get to know Jesus’ community. Evangelism is made easier, as involving people in your life will naturally lead to them meeting others from our church communities, a place were those gifted in answering questions or talking about Jesus can use their gifts, so those of use who aren’t can concentrate on our own gifts. So lets pray and then start using our diaries to meaningfully plan people in to our lives, as this is the only way it will ever happen.

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Hear! Hear! Our Life Group has its own “life verse,” and that verse is Acts 2:42. Our church calls the individual groups Small Groups, but we call ours a Life Group because we do, in fact, do life together. We have gone to mow a lawn and do some yard work when one of our sisters had a broken lawn mower. We have gone to the hospital to spend time with our sick sister. We pray for one another individually and as a group. We go to lunch or to just hang out on occasion. “Doing life together” and being a part of one another’s lives IS what it is all about.

I’m currently reading:

"[Christian rebellion] arises from the doctrine of mankind made in the image of God, and therefore protests against all forms of dehumanization. It sets itself against the social injustices which insult God the Creator, seeks to protect human beings from oppression and longs to liberate them… it protests against every authoritarian regime, whether of the left or of the right, which discriminates against minorities, denies people their civil rights, forbids the free expression of opinions or imprisons people for their views alone."— John Stott